After putting up career numbers in 2008 on his way to being named the CFL Most Outstanding Canadian Player, Peterson's numbers have dropped off the table.

He went from leading the Edmonton Eskimos with 1,317 yards that year, to seeing his productivity cut nearly in half last season as he dealt with an injury.

The problem is, he had been dealing with the wrong injury.

Peterson spent this past week of practice on the sidelines after being placed on the nine-game injured list with a slight Achilles tear.

"I didn't realize it was a tear last year so we treated it differently," said the slotback. "It was a different diagnosis, so I was behaving under the premise that it was a different injury.

"If (we knew) it was a tear last year, I would have took my time then. You don't play through an Achilles tear. I thought it was what I was told, I played through it and probably shouldn't have, then did a whole off-season on it as well. Then came and reaggravated it and did another one in camp."

An MRI showed what was thought to be a minor injury was actually something that could threaten his career.

"Now that I've got a picture of it and I know definitively what's going on, we can treat it the right way and get it healed up," Peterson sad.

The news couldn't have come at a worse time for Peterson, whose nine-week status will keep him from trying to help his team get out of an 0-4 funk.

"I've never really missed any significant time in my career so it's tough," said the 10-year veteran of the league. "At the same time, playing through that injury last year, I know the alternative.

"I just can't help us on one leg. I'm not quite good enough to influence a game in a positive way on one leg. So it's important that I get it taken care of."

Unfortunately, it's coming a year late as the misdiagnosis didn't make an MRI available to Peterson last year.

"It was thought that it was more of a bone thing so we went more X-ray than we did MRI," he said. "I was trying to get an MRI done but it didn't come about, so I didn't get to know definitively until this year.

"The only thing that bothers me is that we went through all of last year treating it the wrong way for what it was."

And after an 0-4 start, the Eskimos could use as many able bodies as possible.

"We need everybody at their best right now," Peterson said. "So it obviously kills me to not be in there, but at the same token, even starting to go through on it the first two games this year, I'm not good enough to help us at that point.

"It would be selfish of me to stay in and try to play through it, and now that I know what it is, risk rupturing it. I just feel blessed that it didn't actually rupture because it, by all rights, should have (ruptured) playing on two tears for that long. The chances skyrocket of you rupturing it and I was able to get away without that."